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What’s your connection to your customers? Pricing, value, service, celebrity, legacy, history, newness, problem-solving or? Maybe it’s that mysterious intangible that somehow and in some way has carried your customers and your brand into a blissful union of consumer and consumed. Brand halo. Brand cache. Inexplicable brand goodness we happily lay at the altar of all things marketed and wonderful. The CMO is joyous. Shareholders wildly toast. The agency is king. Long live the brand. Let’s do this again.

It can happen.

Xerox had it. Nike still has it. Apple drives it. Microsoft wants it. Chevy and Ford are still fighting for it. Audi and BMW are gunning for it. Stoli lost it to Absolute that lost it to Grey Goose that lost it to Kettle One and now hats off to Smirnoff who’s making a run at all of them.

Branding isn’t just the product, it’s not a logo, it’s not a thing.

Branding is a story, a history, a personality, and a promise.

Branding is what you stand for and why. Branding is a precious concept, really. Some might lobby it as too lofty a goal, others are invested in selling, selling, selling. But smart marketers get the brand and do everything in their power to protect it from the daily rigors of the market and fickle customer behavior.

It doesn’t take a genius to flip through the history of a brand to see what’s been done right, or wrong.

Remember, it’s all about your customer and your true vision that’s going to excite, enthuse, and embrace what they may not even know they want; branders have to share a vision. And where your brand lives: in your customers’ mind and in their heart. Brand is not selling, it’s presenting, it’s playing, it’s narrating, it’s motivating, engaging, encouraging, and tapping into the connection you want to make and the connection you want to keep.

Lost that and guess what? You become a product that can be made anywhere, sold by anyone, at any price. In short order your brand becomes nothing more than a me-too commodity and then you are no longer a brand, most certainly something that few of your customers will think about any more. And really can’t remember. Pulling a paraphrased page from the famous UNCF/ Y+R 70’s campaign, a brand is a terrible thing to waste.

Resin is the Bay Area advertising and branding experts in marketing to seniors. We’ve repositioned, rebranded and relaunched senior living communities in California, Ohio, and Virginia. Resin has increased occupancy, awareness, and brand expectations on what a senior living community brand can be in a world of commodity brand promises. Isn’t it time your senior community brand stepped out into the brave new world of thinking differently (thank you Apple).